


Finding the Foundation

by sanva



Category: Captain America (Movies), Marvel Cinematic Universe
Genre: Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Captain America: The Winter Soldier Compliant, M/M, Pre-Avengers (2012), The Winter Soldier escaped Hydra
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-05-21
Updated: 2015-05-21
Packaged: 2018-03-31 15:17:57
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,346
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/3982930
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/sanva/pseuds/sanva
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>The foundation of a persons identity is their memories. </p><p>The Winter Soldier had a reason to escape Hydra early. He's been looking for Bucky ever since.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Finding the Foundation

**Author's Note:**

> I apologize. This is the first thing I've written in a while and more like a tidbit of an AU I don't know if I could do justice to that I'd love to write longer. This is also unbeta-ed.
> 
> Bunnies: The Winter Soldier escapes because of a program Hydra did to produce children/clones using his genetic code. | Bucky finds Steve before the Avengers.
> 
> I stole the basics of Sam from the show Allegiance and edited him for my own use.

“Another.” 

The barkeep, a twenty-something blonde with brown eyes rakes her eyes over him as she pauses swiping a damp rag to pick up stray drops of alcohol left on the counter by her less than perfect drink mixing technique. Shiny pink lips purse and then she meets his gaze head on.

His eyes are clear; the alcohol hasn’t caused more than a pleasant drifting buzz that wanes within seconds of hitting his blood stream. He’s not drunk—can’t get drunk—but he can understand her caution. Nearly the entire bottle of whisky has made its way into his glass and down his gullet. 

“You ain’t drivin’ are you?” 

“Nope,” James pops the ‘p’ in the word and grins at her. “My little sister would kill me if I did.” A wry grin tinges his lips. “Parents died in a car accident. Drunk driver.” He watches as she refills his drink. “I’m staying a few blocks away. The walk’ll sober me up.” Not that he was going to be or even capable of getting drunk.

Still, he did like the taste for the memories it brought back to him. Good memories, bad memories. At least they were memories. He’d been piecing his life back together for decades and any, any trigger that he happened across was welcome.

For the most part anyway. There were one or two that he never wanted to go back to. There was a reason he avoided construction work and stuck to other under the table jobs when he wasn't working his real gig.

She looked a bit doubtful but the full glass in front of him told him she was hoping more for a good tip then she was concerned over his health.

If she continued pouring she would definitely earn a good tip. Between the safe houses and bases he’s raided recently he was flush with cash.

“You’re not seriously going to spend the entire day here, are you?”

James rolled his eyes and glanced to his right as his partner slid onto the stool next to him.

She flagged the bartender who eyed her warily.

He smirked, watching the byplay.

Yana sighed and dug into her pocket, slapping a government issue ID on the counter. “I’m twenty-five.” Actually, she was older, but looked about eighteen most of the time, especially in her current getup. 

The id was picked up and scrutinized for a moment before set before it was handed back.

“What’ll you have?”

Yana’s eyes drifted over the back of the bar. “A screwdriver please.”

“What are you doing here?” James asked as the bartender moved to gather the ingredients.

“Looking for you,” Yana stuffed her id back into her jean pocket and brushed her long hair over her shoulder. “I’ve got some interesting news from some of our contacts boss thought you should know.”

He raised an eye brow and slammed down the rest of his whiskey as Yana’s drink was set in front of her. James tipped it toward the bartender in a silent ask for more.

“Thanks,” She grinned, nodding at other woman. “I love your top.”

“Thank you.” Brown eyes glanced at her as she filled James’ glass and then away as another patron made noise down the way.

“Is it about Bremen?”

“No. It’s about something much more . . .” Yana paused to swallow most of her drink and made a face. “. . . patriotic. This is not a screwdriver.” She muttered the last part under her breath.

James raised his eyebrow. “Patriotic?”

“Red, white, and blue. The stars and stripes.” She turned to face him, serious. “They found him.”

He froze, jaw clenched. His glass thumped against the bar as his fingers lost their grip. The liquid sloshed but didn’t spill. James clenched his hand to keep his fingers from shaking. “Who?”

A puff of air harshly left her lips. “Our lovely friends from SHIELD.”

James’ chin jerked up in surprise and he met her gaze, eyes wide.

“Fury is in charge of it.” That settled him down a bit. Just a bit.

“How long?”

“They found the plane a few days ago.”

“The body?”

She slammed the rest of her drink back, finishing it in one go, and then stared at the glass for a moment after it was settled back against the shiny fake wood of the bar.

“Are they planning something?” His voice choked a bit and he cleared it before continuing. “Something with fanfare . . .”

“No.”

“Why not.” His expression closed. “Dammit. It’s the least—“

“He’s alive.”

 

 

*****

 

 

“What do we know so far?” James asked as he moved into his boss’ office. It was less than eight hours after Yana had found him three states over in the middle of nowhere.

“Nice to see you too, James.” His glanced up from the report he was reading, letting the file drop to the desk as he leaned back. “How was your week off? I haven’t had a week off myself in years. Were you enjoying it?”

“Sam,” James ground out. 

Sam Morita’s face closed off a bit and he nodded at the door to his office that had banged hard enough to damage the plaster of the wall. “Close the door.”

“We have limited knowledge on this. Most of our information comes from our asset on the salvage ship that found the wreck initially. Shield had an operative on hand as the Stark foundation was providing funding. Shield had operatives on sight before our asset could get us notice.”

“That had to be hours. Why the fu—“

“He was a CIA asset not an operative. There was no direct line of communication for him to get word back to us. He had to route it through another asset.” Sam leaned back in his chair and motioned in front of him.

“Sit down before you give me a crick in the neck and calm down.”

“SHIELD has him. You know what—“

“I do know James.” Sam interrupted him. “Sit. Down.”

James let himself drop into the chair and glared at the man in front of him, jaw clenched. Sam Morita looked so much like his grandfather that memories slipped into his mind every moment they were in the same room. These were good memories—memories from before the fall. At least as good as any war related memory could really be.

The more time he spent around his boss the more solid the memories surrounding Jim Morita were and the more like his former self—Bucky—he felt. Maybe that was why he ended up joining the CIA when he ran into the man during an op he was running in a small town in what was now Latvia. That had been decades ago, not long after he destroyed an entire base and pulled several children out of the rubble and into a new life.

Yana and her auburn curls—so much like Becca—had pulled memories from the ravages of his mind and pushed him to action he had been incapable of for so long. Being on the run hadn’t provided them much of a life, but James—then the asset or Yasha as he'd taken to introducing himself—had made it work as he did what he had always done best. Act as a protector and provider. He had made sure the children were fed, cared for as much as he was capable, and more importantly free of HYDRA.

Running into Sam and feeling the rush of memories flit through his mind while taking a short moment to himself to drink in flitting memories of blonde hair and blue eyes and—

 

‘That little guy from Brooklyn who was too dumb not to run away from a fight. I’m following him.”

 

—and then he’d been assaulted by images of another man. His friend. A man who’d fought beside him in a war that was impossibly long ago. He’d normally been so in control, even during flashbacks, but in his surprise—because he knew a name, remembered a name—it had slipped out.

 

“Morita?!”

 

Sam who’d been a recent recruit to the CIA, working one of his first ops at the time had started to play it off but had paused upon recognizing him. He’d known his name, the one James had been born with because of the stories his grandfather had told and the pictures he’d taken during the war.

James had trusted him, trusted the connection to a man who’d life he’d saved and had saved his life in return along with the knowledge that this was a key to finding more of himself. His memory had been patchy and full of blanks, but the feelings pushed to the fore by the memories of a man who was once his comrade had allowed him to trust Sam enough to come in from the cold.

The CIA hadn’t been nearly as infiltrated by HYDRA as SHIELD had been. Maybe HYDRA felt it would be a bit to redundant or they were too wrapped up in their very tight hold on the multinational intelligence agency to pay too much attention to another that didn't have quire the same level of power or reach.

Most of the HYDRA operatives had been lower level and those that weren’t had been easily shifted into retirement or into other positions where they could be monitored. The lower level operatives were handy to funnel false information to. Like the identity of one of the CIA’s newest operatives.

James Grant Proctor, the illegitimate grandson of Rebecca Ann Proctor nee Barnes through a late in life affair her eldest son, Richard, had after the death of his wife. The story had been updated a few times since then, but the Barnes and Proctor family had been cleared and were trusted. They were more than happy to provide any assistance to their long lost family member and the three children he’d dragged into their lives.

The metal arm was the hardest thing to explain away or hide. The CIA research division had someone managed to find a suitable explanation. They weren’t as high tech in some ways as their SHIELD counterpart, but they were more than adequate at their job.

“James?” Sam interrupted his train of thought.

“Sorry.” James ran a hand over his eyes. He could feel the hardness and joints of the metal fingers beneath the leather glove he wore.

“I know today’s been rough. Hell, the last year has been wearing on us all since the op in Murmansk." He paused, looking James over. "I also know what you’re going to want to do.” Sam leaned forward. “Fury was spotted on scene.”

Fury, the official director of SHIELD, was one of HYDRA’s greatest ploy. He had no connection to HYDRA—wasn’t HYDRA from what information they’d been able to dig up. It leant a legitimacy to the organization that made it difficult to just burn the organization to the ground. 

The cat and mouse game that the CIA had been playing to gather enough intelligence and to clean enough of the military up to be able to make a move that wouldn’t end in their own destruction had so far lasted decades. At least they’d been able to foil or push back multiple plans. Taking down the Red Room and the KGB branch of HYDRA had been one victory James was particularly proud of that they'd been able accomplish since he came out of the cold. It had been helped along by the collapse of the Soviet Union, but even then it had been worming its way into the new government that was forming. They'd destroyed it before that could be accomplished.

“He took over?”

Sam nodded. “They’ve transferred Captain Rogers to the New York headquarters. Fury’s sticking with him. It appears he’s taken a personal interest.”

“Good.” He glanced up. “Do we have anyone that can get close?”

Sam smiled and leaned back. “Sharon’s doing her best to worm herself into this. She has a good excuse.”

James breathed a sigh of relief, “Peggy.”

 

*****

 

The wait was excruciating. Sam wouldn’t let him go on any overseas missions—not that he wanted to—and there was very little that could keep his mind away from the fact that the group he’d been working against for so long had Steve.

Yana and Stefan did their best to distract him in their own way at the town house they shared. At least until Yana had been assigned a mission somewhere in China and disappeared for what would be at least a week.

Three days into marathoning various television shows and movies on Netflix after she left Stefan dropped file into his lap and crossed his arms.

“They’re going to set him up with an apartment in New York.” Stefan pursed his lips. If it weren’t for the bright blue hair that was practically a Mohawk it was almost like looking into a mirror. Stefan looked about as old as Yana did though, stuck in his late teen years. He was enjoying it more than his older sister though, working his way through several different college degrees at his own pace.

His eyes were dark though, face rounder than James’, and lips slanted differently. Traits from a mother that he’d never met and James couldn’t remember if he ever had.

“Maya volunteered to set up surveillance, move to whichever neighborhood they set him up at.” Stefan continued, moving to drop into a sprawl on the couch. “Grey’s Anatomy—really, Dad?”

It had six seasons on Netflix up for streaming, one of the longer shows available at the moment. It was mind numbing but barely a distraction. He couldn’t even remember exactly what was going on. His mind was elsewhere.

James shrugged. “I’ll call her. It’s nice of her to offer but she doesn’t need to move for this.”

“Dad. We know how much he means to you.” Stefan pushed himself up. “He’s one of the first things you got back. You named me after him, even when you couldn’t remember your own name. Maya is fine with moving.”

“It’ll take her away from work.”

“Maybe, but it may be closer. We don’t know yet.” Stefan rolled his eyes. “She’s been looking for an excuse anyway. That jerk she was dating lives in the same building as her right now. A change of scenery would be good for her.”

He pursed his lips, tongue slipping out to wet the chapped flesh. “Only if she’s sure.”

“Dad.” Stefan grabbed the remote from the coffee table. “We want to do this. Hell, I’ll go up there if it’ll help.” He quirked a grin and hummed. “Perhaps I could run into him and invite him to a family reunion.”

James snorted and shot him a look. “That’s not a good idea. They’re going to be observing him.”

“There’s a reason I leave the spying to you and Yana,” Stefan yawned as turned off Grey’s Anatomy in the middle of a surgery and began flipping through the menu so he could look over what was available. “Give me a laptop and internet connection over physical activity anyway. Also I have some great CCTV footage of time square you may want to see.”

 

*****

 

 

Everything had taken much, much longer than James liked. Organizing for SHIELD’s bugs to malfunction and for the operatives to be distracted was much more difficult than he liked. Sharon had given him a window though, one night, to take action. Between her and Stefan hacking the surveillance equipment would register as running and active without recording anything current.

Maya’s own observations, including a run in that made her giggle over how awkward Captain America was with women and how out of date his slang was, had also helped get the timing down.

Steve had created a routine for himself that was unconsciously or not seeming to help him cope with the changes in his life and the different world he’d found himself in. Neither Maya nor Sharon could hide their concern though when they talked to James over the phone. 

To everyone outside of their circle he was Sharon’s cousin, not by blood but the Proctor and Carter families had kept in touch. Peggy had kept a promise that Steve had once made to Bucky for him—to watch over his little sister. Most of the howling commando families had made it their prerogatives to not only keep in touch but to help each other whenever they could. It was a good excuse for them to be in contact.

It was just after one in the morning when James slipped into the building through a window on the south side into the apartment his youngest daughter had rented. She smiled at him from where she was typing on her laptop, working on a case for the law firm she worked for.

Slipping through the building was easy and avoiding the guards even more so thanks to not only his training but Sharon’s intelligence and interference. Picking the lock on Steve’s apartment took only seconds, the door so well designed and oiled the hinges didn’t make a sound as he slipped in. He shut it silently and through the apartment.

It was small, but nice. Bigger than the space his limited memories told him they’d had before the war by far. It was bigger than the apartment his family had shared when he was a kid.

A wireless home phone sat on a table and a laptop and stack of papers were on a small dining room table. He recognized them as personnel folders and a quick shuffle of them identified them as those belonging to the Howling Commandos, Peggy, and Howard Stark. Everyone Steve left behind before crashing the Valkyrie.

His file was also there, listing him as missing in action. He shifted them back together, as close to how they had been before he touched them as he could get them.

James picked up a light snore-breath that felt like home, reminded him of the old apartment they’d had while they were taking classes at the community college just before the war. His eyes fluttered closed for a moment, taking it In.

Moving through the apartment he slipped into the bedroom, as silent as all his training allowed him to be.

There was only a small amount of light drifting around the edges of the blinds and curtains covering the windows. One line crossed a pale cheek causing Steve’s eyelashes to cast dark shadows. All of James’ breath left his body as he his eyes took in the sleeping form of a man he’d long thought dead.

It was Steve. Steve Rogers. His childhood best friend and the man he’d loved for as long as he could remember.

His body felt weaker than it had felt for decades. It felt like the moments just after coming out of cryo-sleep. He felt like his legs were going to give out and all he wanted to do was reach out and touch; to bury himself into Steve’s arms and never leave.

“Oh, God. Steve.” His voice came out in a soft whisper, almost a whimper.

The memories this single man was causing to light up in his mind were overwhelming, like nothing else he’d ever felt. Nothing else had ever triggered this much before. This many memories—this much emotion.

He couldn’t help himself, knowing that the surveillance end of things was covered and they didn’t have to worry about getting caught, at least not until sunrise.

By then, if everything went to plan, they’d be long gone from here. 

He settled onto the bed, feeling it dip under his weight. Reaching out a shaking hand he gently slipped it around Steve’s, twining their fingers together and causing the sleeping man to twitch awake, eyes blinking open.

Sleepy confusion crossed features that James was drinking in, finding that he already knew so well, having memorized them long ago. Blue eyes blinked and Steve sat up, a frown marring his lips as his fingers tightened around James’.

“Bucky?

“Yeah,” Bucky felt himself smile. “Yeah, Steve. It’s me.”

**Author's Note:**

> Thank you for reading.
> 
> I really needed to get this AU out of my brain and decided to share it with everyone. Also I finally have a laptop again! So hopefully some of my other fics will be updated soon, I'm working on recovering some of the data from my last laptop.


End file.
